IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/streco/v77y2026icp168-184.html

Unlocking the potential for energy efficiency across china's subnational value chains

Author

Listed:
  • Zhang, Meichen
  • Wang, Yuan

Abstract

Amid rising uncertainty in global climate governance and increasingly difficult inter-state coordination, leveraging domestic specialization to convert efficiency gains into emissions reductions offers a feasible pathway. In this study, we develop a time-series global multi-regional input-output (MRIO) database embedding Chinese provinces, enabling subnational value chain decomposition and logarithmic mean divisia index (LMDI)-based analysis of energy intensity dynamics. This framework captures the spatiotemporal evolution of China’s energy intensity, identifies key inflection points across policy phases, and disentangles underlying drivers. Empirical results indicate that between 2003 and 2017, China experienced a decline in energy intensity across both production and consumption sides, with reductions of 69% and 60%, respectively. These improvements peaked during the 11th Five-Year Plan, as fossil-fuel-reliant, resource-intensive provinces cut energy intensity well above the national average. Interprovincial industrial linkages are a key channel driving energy-efficiency gains. Optimizing domestic value-chain coordination provides a feasible, efficiency-based mitigation margin under existing national burden-sharing.

Suggested Citation

  • Zhang, Meichen & Wang, Yuan, 2026. "Unlocking the potential for energy efficiency across china's subnational value chains," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 168-184.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:streco:v:77:y:2026:i:c:p:168-184
    DOI: 10.1016/j.strueco.2026.01.001
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0954349X26000032
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.strueco.2026.01.001?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to

    for a different version of it.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:streco:v:77:y:2026:i:c:p:168-184. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/525148 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.